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Comics to Consoles: Part II - When Good Comics Go Bad

Summary: It was way back in 1961 that Marvel Comics made a name for itself with the release of Fantastic Four #1. Since that time, the superhero quartet has remained one of Marvel's most loved and yet underappreciated properties. And, while most people may be looking ahead to the recently announced Fantastic Four motion picture, this list is taking a look back at the (thankfully) forgotten FF PlayStation game released by Acclaim.

Why It's Bad: In yet another attempt to cash in on a popular license, Acclaim snapped up the rights to publish a video game based on the Fantastic Four and released a fairly generic side-scroller. Players take on the role of any one of the five available members of the Fantastic Four team. No, that's not a miscount. The developers decided to add former member She-Hulk into the mix. Up to four characters can get in on the action, controlled by either a human player or by the computer. Getting a few friends to tag along is definitely the way to go, because to be perfectly honest, the computer-controlled players aren't all that smart. For the start of the first level the A.I. can hold its own, but after that things just fall apart. Computer-controlled teammates are especially useless in the boss battles scattered throughout the game.

At its core, Fantastic Four is nothing more than a button masher a long, drawn out, boring button masher. The game isn't really difficult, but it is excruciatingly long. The environmental graphics attempt to make use of a pseudo 3D look similar to games like Donkey Kong Country, but the result ends up looking more like a distorted mess. There's also not a lot of variety in the enemy types, which makes the game feel like a repetitive waste of time. This is made even worse by the fact that the developers neglected to include any sort of save or password feature. This means that any time the game is started up, the torture begins all over again from the beginning. The Fantastic Four have long been overdue for their place in the spotlight. Unfortunately, this game is far short of the potential the license has to offer.